


Uneasy Alliances

by Anonymous



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: F/M, Post-Curse of the Black Pearl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-10-21
Updated: 2009-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:09:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enemies, friends, and lovers, and the lines between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Berne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berne/gifts).



The _Grendal_ sailed out of Port Royal at sunrise. It was a stunning scene, Elizabeth Turner thought as she watched the sails puff out and the gulls swoop against the lightening sky. Stunning, too, in its efficiency—the British Royal Navy did not arrange departures for poetic effect. Tide was at dawn, and the navy ran on the clock regulated by the swell of the ocean.

"They'll be back within the month," a voice said from behind her.

"Oh!" She spun, dust flying up around her skirts, hand on her throat, to find Commodore Norrington standing in the doorway. Not leaning—officers never were so casual in public—but decidedly at ease, as he watched his new flagship leave harbour. "Commodore," she said, her almost-dead guilt over their engagement and her public jilting ensuring that her usual sharp retort was softened (although having grown up with James around, she felt more comfortable with him than much of Port Royal society), "you startled me."

"My apologies, madam. I am surprised to find you here at such an hour."

"Mr Turner is at his forge already, and I sleep ill when he is gone. I thought to walk by the shore until the market opens," she explained. One of the best parts of being married was the freedom it gave her—no longer was a chaperon necessary for even so simple a diversion as a stroll along the Sandy Mere.

"It is a lovely morning. The _Grendal_ will have fair weather for some days yet." He scanned the horizon, but whether looking for storm clouds or French shipmasts she could not tell.

Taken by a sudden impulse, she asked, "Would you care to join me, Commodore? It is, as you observed, a lovely day, and I have seen little of you in recent months." This last her fault as much as his, and more the town and garrison's fault than either of theirs. Her wedding had been quiet and remarkably soon after the "regrettable" incident with the Interceptor and the _Black Pearl_. Mrs Jackson had wondered, too audibly for Elizabeth not to know, whether there would be an 'eight-month wonder', but as month after month passed and Mrs Turner's dresses remained unaltered, her tongue was stilled as much as it could ever be in such a small city.

The town, for so it truly was, had little society which was not military—Elizabeth Turner found such men less fascinating than she would have if she had grown to womanhood in England, and had regretted the constraint that had fallen between James Norrington and herself; a man whose chief loss in his assignment in the Caribbean was chamber music was one to be treasured.

Recently, Commodore Norrington had been absorbed in reports of a French fleet amassing in the cluster of ports of Île d'Amadiné. The reports were unofficial, but nevertheless worrying. Governor Swann had mentioned his concern for the Commodore, whose devotion to the mundane tasks of the fort, always commendable, had only increased in recent months, and Elizabeth had been waiting for a chance to renew their acquaintance in some unobtrusive fashion.

"Please?" she said, smiling. "I would count it a great favour, sir."

"Much as I should like to, madam, I fear duty calls." He bowed, and would have turned away, had Elizabeth not caught him by the sleeve. She dropped her hand as he glanced at it, conscious of the impropriety.

"You are no threat to my virtue, and less one to my patience, a quality which makes you rare in Port Royal," she said. "I would _like_ you to come with me."

"For an hour only, then," he said, admitting defeat gracefully.

"I should hate to keep you from your enthralling stack of papers to and from London," she teazed, dimpling.

"The Admiralty has a distressing habit of trusting more to paperwork than to ships, I admit," he said, taking her arm and leading her down the street, around a murky puddle. The sunlight was stronger now, and Elizabeth squinted against the harsh light that reflected off the water. Any haze from the night's damp had been burned away while she spoke with Norrington, and soon the sand would be riddled with tiny pockmarks from oysters. "But they are thankfully inclined to trust my judgment in more matters than not, even after—"

"Even after my kidnapping," she completed for him.

"I'm afraid I rather put more emphasis on that, and the way you threw yourself in danger's way, than I did on many other aspects of that week," he murmured.

"I would expect nothing less," she said, her tone light. "Undead pirates hardly fall within the Admiralty's purview, do they?"

"I suspect that they would ascribe any fully accurate description of the fracas on the Interceptor to the influence of grog, and I have a disinclination to be known for that," he admitted, as they walked past the long, sweeping drive leading up to the Governor's mansion. "It seemed...prudent...to send an abbreviated version of events."

"Prudent, indeed," she agreed.

"Mr Turner's repair on the fort's guns last week was as excellent as always," he said. "A pity Mr Brown has become so riddled with drink, but at least he taught his apprentice well before falling prey to such a weakness."

"He will be pleased that you approve of his work," she said, thrilling as she always did when she thought of her husband (her _husband_! It still seemed a girl's fantasy to be married, actually _married_, to William Turner). "Mr Brown's weakness has been so for far longer than you think, I suspect, sir. After his wife's death in childbed, and the loss of the babe as well, his grief overwhelmed him, and..." she shrugged.

"On the contrary, Mrs Turner. I am the more surprised that a fifteen-year-old journeyman was able to take over the work of the smith with such tact; surprised and grateful. Were it not for Mr Turner's skill, we would have been forced to rely on Master Franklin, whose standard of work is dismal—" she bit back a laugh at the memory of Will's face when he had taken one of Tom Franklin's shoes off a horse; shoddier workmanship he had never seen, he'd said, "or send to London for one, who might well have not been so well liked in the town."

While Will's reputation in Port Royal as a blacksmith was excellent, he was not especially popular. He ascribed it to his lack of origins and his youthful dedication to swordplay—"and you," he had recently taken to adding, dropping a kiss on her hair, but Elizabeth suspected it was at least partially because of his attempts to better himself. The other apprentices had, she thought, been scornful of Will's desire to learn more than the simple arithmetic necessary for accounts, and had punished him as best they could by excluding him from their secret fraternities and such; selfishly, she was rather glad of the lack of society in Will's life now. On the evenings her father did not request her to act as hostess for him, she was able to sit home with him without fear that he would vanish to the Cross Keys for more pints and ribald shanties than he could handle.

Commodore Norrington's distance from his men, a distance crucial to his command, meant, perhaps, that he did not appreciate the extent of Will's isolation; or perhaps he merely referred to the respect the town held for any competent tradesman. Elizabeth dismissed it from her mind, returning her attention to the Commodore. "The only trouble is that his work does not wear out," she said. "Most of the replacement work is for horseshoes, which do not provide..."

"Scope for his talent?" Norrington suggested, as the first dock vibrated beneath their feet. The smell of salt was stronger here, along with the peculiar scent of seagoing refuse that had always been so much of her life she barely noticed it.

"Interest for his imagination," she agreed. "The swords are essentially a diversion, for he sells very few of them. We have swords in the kitchen, swords holding up curtains, swords under my dressing-table..." Norrington chuckled at the image, which was not far from the truth. The only reason Will had not made far more swords in the months past was Elizabeth's newfound delight in the sins of the flesh, which were suddenly no longer sins, and wholly delightful.

"As long as neither of you have sudden delusions of turning pirate," Norrington said, "I doubt you have anything to fear."

"Even if we did," Elizabeth replied, "he would never hurt me." The commodore did not glance at her, and his step did not falter, but the lines around his mouth deepened for a moment: hardly noticeable, but he had been one of the few constants in Elizabeth Turner's life, and she flattered herself she knew his moods and gestures passably well. It would have been a good match. James was a gentle man and he would have put up with her wildness far better than almost any other man of her acquaintance; she could have been proud of him just as they were.

Pirates could happen to anybody, she reminded herself, smothering the guilt and worry in her chest. And she could no more have rejected Will than she could have grown the wings of her former namesake and flown. It did not change the fact that she could have loved James—in a very different way than Will, of course, a calmer sort of goodwill and affection, but a love of sorts, and who would marry James now? Who would look after him properly and ensure that he did not exhaust himself with the fleet, as he seemed on the verge of doing, even now?

The sand under her shoes was damp and crisp with the tide, and the _Grendal_ had vanished beyond the curve of the bay. "Good morning, Mrs Turner," Norrington said, bowing slightly. "If I may take my leave of you."

"Of course," she said, and then, "if you will come to tea to-morrow." Norrington's face was wiped clean of expression, and he merely blinked twice. She gave him no opportunity to respond, adding, "I am sure that you have no engagement, and it has been too long since we have talked. I am not eager to allow you to escape, and what could be more respectable than tea?"

"I am all amazement, madam," he said, "I would hardly expect my society to be sought after—"

"You do yourself a disservice, sir," she said.

"Then it would be my honour to call." Behind his retreating figure stretched a trail of footprints, each step exactly the same size as those before and after it. She watched until he vanished behind the milliner's.

"Do you wish me to come?" Will asked, as Lydia cleared the table that night. Their little house near the shore was full of the cry of the sea, and the shadows from the tallow candles made Will's eyes liquid and lively. Heat pooled, low in her belly, and she waited until the door had swung shut behind the girl before answering.

"I would not be parted from you for all the world," she said, answering the nearly-traitorous thoughts of the morning as much as his question, "but if you have obligations, I think I can handle Commodore Norrington. You need not fear for my temper to-morrow evening."

"Very well, then," Will smiled, and it was only Lydia's humming in the kitchen that recalled her to herself. She endured the remaining time at table and in the sitting room as well as she could, the low sound of the waves thrilling along her spine (she had to rip out nearly all of the seam she'd completed, the next day), but when it was late enough to provide an excuse to retire, she knew she had not fooled Will one whit. His smile was faint, but real, and the creases around his eyes showed for a moment before he dropped his gaze back to the horrifically dull religious treatise her father had lent him. "I'll just finish this chapter, then," he said.

She nodded, barely trusting her voice, and managed to say, "I'd not wish to distract you," from the doorway before hurrying to splash her face with cool water from the pitcher on her dressing-table and curse herself for an obvious fool. But she doubted Will would mind.

Even the familiar ritual of combing her hair was not as soothing as it should have been that night, not when the scrape of the teeth against her scalp made her skin prickle and the way they caught in the tangles and pulled her head back as she coaxed the snarls loose reminded her of other times when her head had been held immobile and her throat exposed. The memories were vivid — and pleasant — enough to make her startle when Will's hand came to rest on her shoulder. He put the lamp, wick shielded from any breeze, on the floor, and took the comb from her.

He had made only a few passes when he sank his fingers into her hair and tipped her chin up to kiss her upside-down. His calluses caught a little on the fine strands; she was sure they were both thinking _blacksmith's hands, I know they're rough_, but the sharp pinpoints of the pain were nothing against the soothing pressure of his mouth on hers: although it was hardly soothing when all she wished to say was _don't stop_ once again.

It was enough for the moment, and only for the moment, to have his fingers twisted against her neck and his lips against her eyelids, so lightly she barely felt them. "Come to bed," he said; if she had been even a hair's-breadth further away, she never would have heard him.

"I'm not very sleepy," she whispered back.

"I'll see what I can do," he promised, amusement glinting somewhere in his eyes, as he pressed on the sharp bones of her elbows. She let herself float upwards, borne in his arms and hands and eyes to the bed, and settled against the coverlet. The light made the burn scars on his fingers gleam golden, and then he leaned on top of her. "Not too heavy, am I?"

"No," she said, "too far away," reaching for him. His kiss, this time, was harder, and she could feel every bone in his neck as she pulled herself up a little, just that little bit closer, to the warmth of his skin. Her shift was cambric as thin as a handkerchief, and Will had grown up careful around delicate things—things he could never have, or so he thought. She didn't much mind his care in flicking open the small buttons, it was quite a thing to be treasured like that, but she did mind when he stopped between her breasts.

She only minded for a moment. "Elizabeth," he said, and she couldn't prevent the small moan that rose to her lips like springwater.

"Please," she said, tilting her head back as best she could. He let his tongue trail over the muscles in her neck, and when he did that—well, it was his own fault, really; she moaned again, and when he chuckled against the hollow at the base, the vibrations were all combined and too much for only her throat. They seemed to spill down her body and pool low in her belly, setting her trembling.

"Cold?"

Infuriating man! "Disinclined to reply in the affirmative," she managed to say. "Means no."

Will bit the flushed skin at the tip of her breast in response—he hated any reminder of her time with Barbossa and his crew, since, she thought, he had been unable to rescue her as he had wished. But it was not as though the result had been wholly unpleasant; she was here, after all, and her head was full of the sound of the sea and her own breathing. She was alive and well, oh, so well, there could be nothing ill with her when she loved her husband in quite this way.

His teeth were hard and almost too sharp, but they stilled the trembling a bit. The slide of his tongue along the edges of his teeth did as well—it is rather difficult to tremble when one's body is arching upwards towards one's husband's mouth.

Will trailed his fingers over her stomach, and then pulled the remaining buttons free. The cooler air against her skin was a relief for a moment, and then was gone again as a wave of warmth fell over her. Her eyes fell shut again, and she would have regretted it if she could have; it would not have surprised her to see her flesh glow like a sword in the fire, and she would have been more than pleased to see Will's face and the open worship in his eyes. But she could not but give herself over to the steady pressure and rocking of his fingers against her, feeling herself drown in it. She had near-drowned twice in the last year; twice in a week, in fact, and neither time Will had been there; but it did not matter. Nothing mattered at that moment, but the way the air was caught in her throat and the sharp bones in Will's hand. She had never seen his bones, as she had seen Jack Sparrow's, she did not know him like that, but she knew him even more intimately than under the skin.

"Oh," she said, when her flesh had stopped sparkling like a new-laid fire.

Will's smile was dark and triumphant, and his kiss storm-fierce. She let out her held breath into it, and his weight settled between her thighs, as if the shared air had been a benediction of some kind. It had been, of course, and he knew it.

Elizabeth had doubted, after the first few awkward nights, when she had secretly wondered what the fuss about consummation was, whether any other woman on the island, in the Caribbean, in the entire world, had felt like this. It was impossible to credit, somehow, that any other man but Will could have this knowledge of how to make her shatter and sparkle like finest lead-glass.

But it did not matter, and she reached down her body to grasp Will and guide him in, the surprising heat where their bodies met no longer a surprise but wonderfully familiar, as all of it was. The slight ache as her flesh shifted to accommodate his; the singing line of pleasure through her body pulling her taut as a ship's line; the pressure that lifted her hips and let her ease herself onto him further; all of it still amazing, but no longer astonishing.

Will's careful thrusts within her pressed soft sounds out of her mouth, and she was not too far gone to notice when his breathing became ragged. She loosed her hand where it gripped the coverlet and reached up to run her hand over his chest, her nails scraping his skin lightly. "Elizabeth," he muttered, eyes falling half-shut; it should not have surprised him any more when she tried to give him pleasure equal to what she knew, and perhaps it did not — but always he was grateful for her desires, and their demonstration.

"Will," she murmured, the single syllable almost too much for her as she pressed her fingertips along the edges of his muscles. He dropped his head and slid his tongue along her collarbone and lower to the soft flesh of her breast, and something shining swam through her head. She cried out, clutching at him, and her back arched.

She felt his low groan even while she was still gasping for breath herself, and the jerk of his hips in his release shook her out of her daze. They lay quietly together for a few moments, until Will bestirred himself to roll off her and draw a few shaky breaths.

"I love you," she murmured when she had the self-possession to say so.

Will mumbled something that could have been a response, and she smiled in the nighttime dimness of a single dying lamp. He was likely asleep already; watching him sleep, seeing the way his face softened in slumber, was something she enjoyed as a secret privilege that had not been mentioned in the marriage ceremony, and it let her clean up without embarrassment.

She wiped up the damp mess that coupling always made and knotted her hair behind her head carefully, before blowing out the lamp and drawing the coverlet over them. Will turned toward her, slinging a leg over her hip and nestling his face into the curve between her neck and shoulder. She settled into the forgelike heat of his body and let her breath out.

Perhaps she did not have the life she had imagined as a child, but in many ways it was a better one. The ten-year-old on the crossing from England had never imagined such sensations as those she now enjoyed, and pirates were not the dashingly romantic heroes she had read about, and all in all, she gladly would have traded the one illusion for the other experience.


	2. Chapter 2

"All I'm saying—" Jack began again, waving his mug in the air.

"And I didn't listen the first dozen times, Jack," Anamaria snapped, "so what makes you think I'll concede to you now?" She glared at him, but Captain Sparrow had been on the receiving end of far too many of Anamaria's glares for it to quell him, and she knew it. It was a faint but still-living hope that even prompted the attempt, which had failed as all previous attempts all had.

"It's just—"

"Jack. Shut up, or I swear to any god listening I'll hit you over the head with your own cutlass." Jack narrowed his eyes at that, but threats tended to work on the captain when wheedling didn't, especially when it was Anamaria snarling at him.

The mulatto woman had been roundly chosen as first mate on the _Black Pearl_ when Gibbs had received one too many knocks on the head from spars and ropes (or possibly, Anamaria thought uncharitably, one too many tankards of ale) and retired to the marginally quieter life of a whorehouse protector. Everyone on shipboard knew that if all else failed, she would have no compunction about fucking Jack Sparrow into oblivion.

Thankfully, that necessity had not yet occurred.

The most recent in a series of arguments about the course to set once the _Black Pearl_ had been scraped clean of barnacles had resulted in the same deadlock as before. Anamaria knew that her role onboard was more to control Jack Sparrow than to direct the crew—Jack did have a talent for attracting skilled sailors, she would concede that, even if they were touched in the head more often than not.

But Jack himself was the most stubborn, self-righteous bastard she'd ever had the pleasure — and it had been a pleasure, she'd concede that as well, and gladly — of having in her bed. And now he was convinced that once the _Pearl_ was clean, it would be a splendid, topping good idea, to sail to Port Royal, call on the Governor's daughter and her swain, and perhaps take tea with the Commodore and chat over the prevailing winds in the eastern Caribbean.

Perhaps he had not said so, but his professed desire, she was sure, to sail toward the triangle of islands that Port Royal overlooked, had nothing to do with avoiding the French fleet that had been glimpsed off starboard last week, and everything to do with a certain blonde, and a certain pirate's son, and a certain Navy officer. Anamaria had known, when she let Jack Sparrow into her bed, and when she had followed Joshamee Gibbs down Tortuga's High Street to him a year later, and when she had gestured him to the _Black Pearl_'s wheel a week later still, and when she had accepted his grip as his second-in-command six months after that, that he was a daft, queer bird, but she had never thought him suicidal.

She was beginning to wonder.

"Anamaria, love," Jack said, after draining his mug.

"I said no!" She ground her teeth, and bit her tongue, and what came out next was considerably less like a shriek. "If you want to sail straight to the bloody Navy, Jack, you'll do it without me, and without the crew, and without the _Pearl_." She gasped at her own words, but they could not be unsaid, and dropped her gaze.

"Anamaria," Jack said, voice low, all humour gone, "would you mutiny?"

"No," she whispered. "Never, Jack."

"Captain Sparrow, if you please," he said, and set his hands flat on the table. "The Black _Pearl_ will be clean by tomorrow noon, and we'll sail at the next tide." He pushed himself up and stood over her, those idiotic braids swaying a little as he cocked his head. "We'll be set for Port Royal."

She nodded mutely, and he turned and walked out the door without so much as a by-your-leave, as if she would have refused it.

The crew, when they assembled at the gangplank, was confused, but when Anamaria said Port Royal, they assumed that Jack had shared information with the mate that he did not think they needed, and set to hauling canvas. She watched them with a sick heart, but watching them was preferable to watching Jack, who would not meet her eye, and who lingered at the _Pearl_'s wheel, touching the scarred wood like a man half-awake.

Or half-asleep, and unsure whether the dream will be preferable to waking.

The wind gusted, first with them, and then against them, and the sails on the _Pearl_, now alternating between black and white, snapped and puffed wide. Cotton's parrot was a bright flash of colour against the cloth, and the sea was impossibly blue, and her skin felt like molten metal against the close-grained planks of the _Pearl_'s railing.

She had never loved the _Pearl_ the way Jack had, and well he knew it. She had never tried to come between them. She wanted a ship, but she didn't want one badly enough to mutiny for one. And she knew that the _Pearl_ would go into even deeper mourning, if ever her captain were not Jack Sparrow, than she had last time. She didn't want a ship in mourning; and she had her suspicions about what the _Pearl_ herself could do if roused enough.

The tension of her quarrel with her captain made her scalp itch, and she pressed her palms against her eyes. It would not be far to Port Royal. It would be far enough.

She did not see the rising smoke at the horizon until Buchanan shouted, and shook herself fully alert again. The wind was against the _Pearl_, and Anamaria ducked under a tangle of rope and swung herself over the rickety stairs to stand beside Jack at the wheel. "What is it?" she asked.

"Can't see," Jack grunted. "Smoke blocks it, damn stupid filthy _bastard_—" For the moment, he trusted her; for the moment, she felt happy.

"Between us 'n Port Royal," she said, and he snapped the telescope shut.

"I know," he said shortly, and rested one hand on the spokes of the wheel. She lifted her chin; Jack had never struck her, but he'd not be the first if he did now. "Might as well see what's what," he added, not looking at her. She nodded mutely, and jumped over the railing again, to catch Buchanan by the ear.

"More canvas," she said, and stalked away.

There were no survivors. The wind had slacked, and then dropped entirely, and they'd had to resort to the oars; by the time they were close enough to see the slaughter, it was over. The stink of blood and gunpowder was thick in the air.

Jack had stood at the wheel the entire time they crept close, watching with his head cocked, like his namesake. Anamaria wasn't sure what he could have been looking at, only grey smoke and a listing mainmast, but she ignored him as best she could.

It was better that he not watch her, anyway.

Jefferson, with his lanky frame, swung across first, a cutlass clenched in his teeth, for effect, and a gun tucked in his sash, so he'd come back. "No survivors!" he called, after a few moments of poking at the bodies lying the deck.

"_Idiot_," Jack snarled, and glared at Anamaria as if it had been her idea to take on the redheaded boy. (It had been his. "Any man who can kiss two whores at the same time is one I want on me ship," he'd said, and she hadn't bothered with the fight.)

"And belowdecks?" she called, making her voice slightly sweeter than ordinary, promising slow, painful retribution if he didn't come up with the right answer.

He disappeared down the stairs, and she turned her attention to the ship itself—a forty-four-cannon bemouth, she realized dumbly. The brass shone, even through the grime of battle, and the hull was newly-painted. "She's new," she said, and Jack, next to her, huffed an unamused laugh.

"She's _English_, that's what she is," he said, and she stared at the Union Jack, which had chosen that moment to spread wide in the fresh breeze.

"Bloody _hell_," she said with feeling.

"Not arguin' that, darling," Jack agreed, and leaned on the railing. "And to think I was wonderin' which we should help," he added a moment later.

"Jack Sparrow, rescuer of helpless maidens and ships everywhere," Anamaria said. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at her, and she raised a hand. "Not that there's a difference, of course," she said hastily, waiting for his damned glittering smile to break through, but it didn't.

Jefferson emerged and called, "No one below, either!" Jack's head dropped forward a little, and he pulled himself upright.

"No use letting the rum go to waste," he said, and reached for a rope.

The ship even smelled new, Anamaria thought, as she dragged the corpses into hastily-stitched canvas bags. The _Pearl_'s crew worked in solemn silence; even Cotton's parrot perched on its master's shoulder without disturbing their work. The wounds of the dead were the usual run of battle injuries...there were just _more_ of them.

They left the heavy coats on the dead; the medals and buttons and embroidery would help them plunge to Davy Jones's locker, six fathoms down, but had no qualms about taking the boots. No doubt they would have done just as well as a weight, but good quality shoes were rare in the Caribbean, and rarer still for pirates, and the _Pearl_'s crew were pirates.

Anamaria stopped counting after three rows of ten men each stretched out on the deck. Not all were English—the others wore some sort of uniform, but none she could identify. There was no insignia, and the cloth was unbleached linen. The sweat soaked through her shirt quickly in the sun, and she pushed the hair off her forehead and rolled her shoulders.

Jack emerged from the captain's cabin, where he'd secluded himself after ordering Adams, Carter, and McKinley to take charge of the stores to be brought over to the _Pearl_, and leaving Anamaria to direct the rest of the crew. The men glanced uneasily at each other—no more superstitious men than sailors walk the earth—but set to without protest. He jerked his head, and Anamaria left her latest charge and crossed the deck to him, watching her footing as not to slip on the blood.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice low. "Not another damned curse, Jack, I'm not prepared to forgive you for the last one yet."

"Nothing so easy," Jack said, and steered her into the cabin. "The _Grendal_, and wouldn't you know he'd name it something like that, is the brand spanking new toy and pride of the English fleet in our humble little outpost of the empire."

"And?"

"And the orders are for nothin' more interesting than a geographical survey of the eastern islands," he said impatiently.

Jack Sparrow's mind moved about as quickly as his namesake's wings, and Anamaria's brow furrowed as she tried to follow him. "The English are a queer bunch," she offered, but Jack sighed, as if her response were only one in a long series of irritants.

"Why would you need forty-four twenty-four-pound cannons for a ship that's meant to record geography?" he said, with exaggerated patience.

"You wouldn't," she said promptly.

"Right. So why did they?" She shrugged. "For mapping," he mumbled, tapping a logbook on the captain's desk. Anamaria had never learned to read well, but she could make out the neat columns of figures as coordinates, and she watched Jack's thumb come to rest on one set of ink numbers and rub the paper carefully. "It doesn't make sense."

"Your devil's compass points wherever you want it to," she said, after a moment watching his dark, scarred hands move restlessly, and clearing her throat.

He looked at her with real exasperation then, and said, "Y'know, people say I'm daft, but they've never had to hold a conversation with you, and you're not even in your cups!"

She burst out laughing at that, couldn't help it, and although she clapped a hand over her mouth and choked back her snickers, she had seen Jack's lips twitch, and counted that a victory. It was short-lived, however—Carter leaned into the cabin, his shock of sun- and salt-bleached hair preceding him, and said, "Found somethin' innerestin, Cap'n."

"If it's a cursed treasure, we don't want any," Jack warned, but skirted the table and went out into the sun.

Anamaria, left behind, looked closer at the logbook and the red and black ink. The dead captain's handwriting was small and spiky, but she was able to puzzle out that he had kept diligent notes, twice a day, and that the current set started only a few days ago. She shuddered, and looked up when Jack came bursting back in.

"Look at what we found!" he crowed, as excited as if he'd actually had a hand in the discovery. He hauled a small boy forward, dark-skinned and dark-haired and filthy.

"Not one of ours," she said, as Carter stepped in. Jack, arms windmilling in indignation, struck him in the chest, and he ducked back out, glancing at Anamaria for a moment—whether in apology for leaving her with Jack or looking for sympathy in having dead bodies to deal with, she wasn't sure. She was not inclined kindly toward him, in either case.

Jack closed his eyes for a moment, clearly trying to restrain his temper, and then dropped into a crouch before the boy. "What's your name?" he asked, loftily ignoring his first mate. He cocked his head, and his hair swung about his face. The boy reached out one hand, broken nails black with filth, and yanked hard on one of the more colourful braids.

"Ouch!" Jack shouted, starting to his feet. "All right, the hell with your name. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?" The boy crossed his arms over his chest, his face stubbornly blank, but his eyes widened when Jack said, "And me ship is the _Black Pearl_." Jack saw, and smiled a little, not the smile she strove for, but the cold, thin one that left her gripping her fingers to hide their trembling.

"Jack, what are you _doing_?" she demanded.

He didn't even glance at her. "Were you on this ship when it set sail, or were you one of those who attacked it?"

The child stuck out his tongue. Jack reached out, quick as blinking, and gripped it between thumb and forefinger. "I'm not to be trifled with, laddie," he said softly. "Pirate, I am, and if you served under that white-wigged commodore, you'll know my name. If you're not, you should anyro'." The boy tried to say something, tried to spit, and failed.

"You must taste terrible, Jack," Anamaria said, more quietly. He glanced at her, and whatever he saw in her face made him let go.

He hadn't used the commodore's name since — ever, really, she thought, trying to remember it, if she had ever known it. She tilted her head, and watched them, swallowing hard against a lurch in her stomach that had nothing to do with the heave of the Grendal.

"Right," Jack said. "We'll be taking you to Port Royal with us, lad, and if you're one of the commodore's he can bloody well deal with you and welcome to it, and if you're not, well, the Port Royal jail's not bad. Spent enough time there meself to know."

"You're mad," Anamaria blurted.

"I beg your pardon," Jack said mockingly, inclining his head.

"Ship of the line, Jack," she said, her horror growing the more she thought of it, "all hands killed, and you propose to sail into Port Royal and turn this — this _shrimp_ over to the commodore of the eastern fleet? You're mad," she repeated. "He'll think we've done it, Jack, he'll toss us _all_ in the brig, not just the boy, whoever he is, and not just you. All of us, Jack, every last one."

"Commodore knows I'm a man of my word," Jack said, looking offended that she'd even questioned his lunatic plan. "If'n I say it wasn't us —"

"He'd arrest us anyway," she said, "he'd have to. _Pirates_, Jack, every one of us — yes, yes, pirates and good men, but that doesn't matter a tinker's damn against the noose! You'll not get me hanged, Jack Sparrow, I won't die for you or your damnfool plans."

"Anamaria," Jack warned, his hand still on the boy's shoulder. "I'm your captain."

She swore, and banged her fist into the table, and threw her head back. "Yes," she said. "A bloody stupid one sometimes, but you're my captain." Jack snorted.

"You can think me a daft fool all you like," he said, "but I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, and I don't have to tell you what that means." She would have told him that it meant he was a thieving bastard who'd stolen her boat and nearly gotten her killed a dozen times over and had the common sense of a cannon ball, but it also meant the man who'd survived being marooned by Hector Barbossa twice, and that was no petty thing. She nodded. "Then you'll give the crew the orders I give you," he said, "and if you're a very good girl, I'll —"

"Finish that sentence," she said, all the anger rushing along her bones, "and I'll—"

"Anamaria." His voice cracked like a 'nine-tails, but she took a step closer to him, reckless and infuriated. "Don't say what I think you're goin' to say," he said, "or I'll leave you here to rot."

Long past twelve bells that night, Anamaria lay in her hammock, watching the beams of the underdecks in the darkness. Her shoulders ached, from hauling the weight of dead men, and, she supposed, from guilt.

She found herself on deck almost before she'd realised she was on her feet at all; the _Pearl_ looked ghostly, ghastly, in the moonlight; she brushed a hand along the railing in greeting, perhaps a query. The wood felt peculiarly splintery under her thumb. McKinley's shadow bobbed ahead of her, and he turned as the stairs creaked—turned more quickly than she might have expected, in fact. The small, sandy moustache under his nose wiggled, like a rabbit's whiskers. "Couldn't sleep, eh?"

She walked past him, straight to the double doors that Jack was probably asleep behind, and rapped, hard, before she could lose her nerve. When he did not answer, she leaned her forehead on the deeply carved whorls in the wood and closed her eyes. She nearly fell when Jack yanked both panels open, but managed merely to stumble, and caught herself.

Jack flashed his teeth at her; she could not call it a smile, but waved a hand toward the inner darkness of the cabin, unlit by any lamps, and said softly, "If milady cares to call, she shall of course be made welcome."

She nearly spat at him, but walked past and settled into one of the low chairs as calmly as she could. "What do you want?" Jack asked, sitting cross-legged on the oaken table before her. He sounded almost curious.

"Couldn't sleep," she said.

"Scrub the deck," he suggested. She couldn't see his eyes, but the set of his mouth suggested that he was sulking, rather than having talked himself into a spectacular melancholic mood or out of it entirely. She reached for him, and caught his hands, and held them as hard as she could. His rings pressed against her fingers, and she leaned forward, lifting his hands a bit.

She couldn't breathe, and certainly couldn't speak. It was Jack's cool regard that broke the swelling tide in her throat like a knife. Instead of kissing his fingers, as she had half-intended, she bit the inside of his wrist and _yanked_ him closer.

The knot in that filthy sash was easy enough to undo, but the ties on his breeches were matted with salt and she couldn't break the hemp. "Don't you ever," she began, and Jack let go of her hands. For an instant she was afraid that he was about to stand up and walk out of his own damned cabin; she'd have won, but she didn't even want to fight, it was all a mistake, even though she was _right_, but he simply dropped his trousers without bothering with the ties and cocked a brow.

"Was that what you were tryin' to do, love?"

"Yes," she said, and bent her head to suck him. It was not as awkward as she had feared, and she gave herself over to the rhythm of her tongue against him, the salt in his skin, the pulse of the blood in the thick vein on the underside, and she closed her eyes and thought of the hull of the _Pearl_, the ribs that made up the shell of the ship, the thin skin that held out the sea, and she slipped off the chair to sit on the floor and rested her hand against the floor of the cabin. It steadied her, and the throb of the _Pearl_'s heart travelled up her palm and arm and she altered the shape of her mouth and flicked her tongue upwards.

Jack's groan was echoed in the creak of the _Pearl_'s rigging outside, and as he began to move his hips, she closed her eyes. She was not sorry, she had nothing to be sorry for, and why she had come here she was not certain, but it felt right, right to be scraping her nails along the insides of Jack's legs, the rough, wiry hairs there showing the trails of her touch.

Every flick of her tongue against his flesh made him shudder, and when he rested a hand against her cheek, she pulled back just enough to glance upwards. His eyes were shut, and his head tipped back so the she could see the tendons in his neck, standing out against the long column of his throat and the jut of the bulge, shifting as he swallowed. She couldn't bring herself to smile, but returned her attention to the spit-slicked flesh before her, running her teeth along its length and pressing her fingers at the base, tugging lightly on the curls of hair.

"Anamaria—" he gasped, a moment later, and she reached up to hold his hips still. Her jaw already ached from the unaccustomed employment, and she was near choking every time he thrust into her mouth, and she wasn't sure if he would be able to restrain himself.

Jack could never restrain himself, she thought vaguely, as she tightened her lips and rubbed her thumb just below him, where the creases of skin weren't visible but she could feel every tiny curve in his body. She would always have to hold him back, and then the thought was lost in his moan and the taste suddenly filling her mouth. It was only later, back in her own, empty hammock, that she remembered it, and her mouth, lips a little sore, twitched. She'd always hold him back; she would always be there to hold him back, but fell asleep before she could wonder how to have her own boat and be there at Jack's side.


	3. Chapter 3

"I've brought you a present, Commodore," Sparrow said as soon as Norrington's gaze fell on him. His study was bright with sunlight, and Sparrow was a discordant note of vivid colour against the dark wood and pale, fluttering curtains.

"Get out, Sparrow," he said.

"That's not very polite," Sparrow scolded, stepping forward. "I'd expect better from a officer of His Majesty's Navy."

Norrington arched a brow. "To a convicted pirate?" he asked, as he took off his heavy outer coat. The study was blessedly cool after the thick heat of the air outside, and he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face off.

Sparrow looked offended and flung a filthy hand against his forehead. The braids and beads in his hair swung and jangled. "I'm a gentleman, I am," he said. "And I come bearing gifts. Well. One gift."

"I can only imagine," Norrington said, folding the square of fabric back up and slipping it into his pocket once more. He was tempted to remove his wig, but was not fool enough to take away one of the chief reminders of his authority over Sparrow.

"I don't imagine you can," Sparrow said, looking coyly through his lashes. "What d'you say to a wager, Commodore?"

"You brought rum," Norrington said, and leaned on the back of the nearest chair. "Very kind of you, I'm sure, but I am not tempted by — doubtless stolen — alcohol of dubious quality, and especially not when it's meant as a bribe. Congratulations, Sparrow, you've evaded my men for the last year. We've had other concerns, and you've had enough sense not to attack English ships, which has made you even less of a point of interest. Now get out."

"Commodore, I'm wounded, truly."

"I'm sure you are," he said, and tipped his head back against his chair. It had been a long day; a despatch-ship had arrived from London the previous day, and suddenly a large stack of documents from the Admiralty and the attentions of one of their minor officials, who stuttered, occupied his time. He had not joined the Navy to read old men's crabbed handwriting, he thought, and straightened his back, opened his eyes, and sat up. He had an engagement at the Turners's, and it would not do to sink into a brown study.

Sparrow had moved closer to him, and the scent of musty seawater and smoke that clung to him was now even more distinct.

"Words," Norrington snapped, "of one syllable, Sparrow. Get out."

"Once I give you your present," Sparrow agreed, far too cheerfully. Before Norrington could answer, Sparrow knelt on the carpet and reached underneath his desk, pulling out a — child.

The boy's face showed signs of a recent scrubbing, but the overwhelming impression was still that the dirt was basically ground in. "The explanation you are about to give me," Norrington said slowly, "had better be phenomenal."

Sparrow opened his mouth, but shut it without saying anything. That was the first time he had ever been at a loss for words in Norrington's presence, and he found himself watching the man's thin lips and the faint sparks of gold in his mouth as he waited for Sparrow to say something.

Sparrow tugged on one of his bead-collections. "All right," he mumbled. "_Pearl_ 'n I were coming to Port Royal to —"

"Taunt me?" Norrington said.

"Planning t'avoid you," Sparrow admitted. "Point is, there was a ship. Another ship."

"There are many ships in the Caribbean," Norrington said. The boy was looking around his study, trying to pretend nonchalance, but his slightly open mouth betrayed him, and Norrington kept his gaze fixed on him, rather than Sparrow. He was pleased to note that Sparrow had enough sense to keep a grip on the boy's shoulder — he was fond of some of the more delicate articles in here, including a crystal decanter which had come from India, and would have been rather irate had Sparrow's 'present' broken them. "There's a practice, among men of honour, of conducting trade openly. Ships tend to usefulness in this custom."

Sparrow glared. "One of your ships," he said.

"And you have the nerve," Norrington began, pushing himself upright, furious with Sparrow for having such a taste for the dramatic, and furious with himself for not simply arresting the man as soon as he had seen him, "the unmitigated gall, to stand there—"

"It wasn't us!" He had had to raise his voice, and Norrington noticed that his cheeks were flushed. "We didn't touch her." Sparrow glanced away, and then back, and said, challenge clear in his tone, "The _Grendal_. Sound familiar, mate? Forty-four twenty-four pound cannon frigate, figurehead a dragon, left port—"

"Two weeks ago last Tuesday," Norrington said automatically. "You must have boarded her if you know that, Sparrow."

"Not until after."

"After what?"

"I don't know," Sparrow admitted. "Not exactly. I can guess. But I — no survivors, all right? It's not hard to guess."

Norrington stared at him. The man appeared genuinely distressed, and the boy twisted away from his grip. His knuckles were pale where he held the boy, and he glanced down and relaxed his hand.

"We boarded her," he said, "but by that time, whoever it was who attacked had sailed off. We didn't see because the wind failed, and the smoke jus' went straight up. They must have gone to the east or we would've caught a glimpse." He drew a breath. "Whoever the hell it was either missed the shrimp, here," he said more quietly, "or they forgot him. Haven't been able to get him to say a word, spitfire bastard that he is. He bites, I'll tell you that."

"No survivors?" Norrington repeated.

Sparrow made a helpless gesture with one hand, rings gleaming like wet blood. "Wasn't as though we could've saved any," he mumbled. "Too far away."

"No survivors," he murmured, again. He had deliberately left as many papers as he could at the fort, but he remembered who had commanded the _Grendal_—Andrew Gillette, in his first command.

Andrew had only been promoted six weeks before he had set sail; the jubilant letter he had sent home to his spinster sister would be followed hard upon by one announcing his death. Unfair was not quite the word for it; nor was tragic. Stupid seemed to be rather more in order; or wasteful perhaps.

He swallowed. There would be time to mourn Andrew later, all the time in the world. "No survivors," he said, glad that his voice held steady, "save for him?"

"Aye," Sparrow said.

"Then," Norrington said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "I shall have to find out what he knows."

"I've been tryin' that for near on a week," Sparrow said.

"Yes, well, I'm rather more inclined to trust to my methods than yours, if you don't mind my saying so." Norrington had been watching the boy throughout the conversation, and he was fair certain that he understood what they were saying; he had shifted where he stood in response to more than simply Sparrow's shouting or his own impetuous anger.

"An' if I did?" Sparrow asked, a brow arched.

"Mind?" Sparrow nodded. "I cannot say that I would care overmuch."

One side of Sparrow's mouth quirked upwards, and he nudged the boy forward. "Go on, then." The boy pulled his lower lip into his mouth and began to worry at it with his teeth, and Norrington sighed.

"For heaven's sake," he said, "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I didn't try that," Sparrow interjected, leaning one hip against the desk. His hand swept over the ornate carvings of rosettes at its edge, his thumb dipping into the depressions and running over the sharp curves.

"No?" Norrington broke eye contact with the boy and crossed over, knocking Sparrow's hand off the desk and opening a drawer. There was a tin of ginger comfits in the very back, perhaps a third empty, and he drew it out and flipped the top open.

"Try some," he said, holding it out to the boy, who looked at the box suspiciously and glanced at Norrington through his lashes. "It isn't poisoned," he said patiently. "Here, I'll have a piece, and you have a piece, and then, when you've told me what you know, you shall have another."

"Why don't I get any?" Sparrow sounded sulky, but he had cocked his head and was watching, eyes bright against the dark smudges of kohl on his face. He still seemed an unnatural presence in the study; but then, everything in the Caribbean was unnatural, to a man brought up in Berkshire—shining swathes of colour so vivid they made the eye ache, heat that lived under one's skin and invaded the body's humours, men like Jack Sparrow, with ships like the _Black Pearl_.

Save that there was no one like Jack Sparrow, and no ship like the _Pearl_, anywhere, and Norrington knew it was true, even as he put the thought away.

"He isn't under sentence of death," he said, and picked a small piece of comfit up. The boy reached out and took it from his fingers, leaving smudges of stickiness behind, and sank his few teeth into it. Norrington said, "Well?" dropping his voice a half-octave and biting off the consonant.

He was very little surprised when the boy looked at him, eyes and mouth wide, showing him a rim of white around the pupil and a rather unattractive view of half-chewed candy. He reached out and pressed a finger beneath the boy's chin, urging the lad to close his mouth.

"Well?" he repeated, more softly.

The boy swallowed, hard, twice.

It took three reminders that he would get no more sweetmeat until the commodore was satisfied with his testimony, and a brief episode when he made a dive for the box that Norrington had laid down on the desk's surface, of Sparrow's tripping him so that he lay, sprawled rather like a beached fish, on the carpet. His speech was largely the gutter _patois_ of the French islands (although Norrington remained certain that he at least understood English, even if he refused to speak more than three words of it at a time), but eventually they were able to piece together that he was a street-thief by profession.

Norrington guessed that he had lived in Île d'Amadiné's chief city, barely more than a town, and that he had been about twelve when the French troops had seized him. The boy was sure that it had been only a few weeks that he had been in their service, all of it onboard a ship called La Femme de la Nuit, and he had no more loyalty to them than he had to the sea herself.

It was a lucky stroke, that, Norrington thought, as he continued to quiz the boy — had he been much older, or in their service much longer, this inquisition would have been largely fruitless; loyalty, to whatever larger cause, rarely developed before thirteen, and hardened quickly, soon after. But the boy didn't seem aware of the usefulness of even the paltry amount he could tell them — that La Femme had been stationed in one of the dozens of small coves along the shore, that her captain had been a man named Jacquerie, and that every time they glimpsed a ship, a raiding party was sent out. There had been only one ship before the _Grendal_ had been attacked — a pirate ship, the boy rather thought, since they had come back with some gaudy jewellery and a large quantity of rum. (The sailors, being French, had complained bitterly of the rum, cursing their luck that they had not been so fortunate to capture even one cask of Madeira or Champagne.)

But the _Grendal_'s approach had provoked great excitement, and the boy, who had snuck off to sleep in one of the longboats, found himself three hundred yards away from the ship before he quite realised what was happening; and he could not swim a stroke, and was therefore obliged to attend the attack, an honour he would just as soon as left to anyone else.

"Attacking ships before knowing who they are," Norrington said, after he had called a maid to take the boy to the kitchen and give him a decent meal (adding, in an undertone, to give him an orange or two from the tree; no harm in a trifle extra care against scurvy). "Killing all on board."

Sparrow nodded silently. His distaste showed in the curl of his lip.

"I don't like it," Norrington decided.

"Do you like anything, mate?" Sparrow mumbled. Norrington threw the box back in his desk, irritation resurfacing; he had been distracted by the boy's tale, and had to admit that he was grateful to Sparrow to bringing him the news, but that was no excuse for consorting with pirates. Doubtless Martha would be spreading gossip of Jack Sparrow's presence in his study tomorrow, and the tale would become warped beyond recognition by Wednesday next; doubtless Article XXIX of the Articles of War would be invoked sorrowfully by every gossip who knew of it.

He glanced at Sparrow, who was idly picking at his nails. "I like," he said deliberately, "having my orders obeyed," and hoped desperately that he was not blushing when Sparrow looked up and arched a brow.

"Indeed."

The silence was only broken by the chime of the clock at the head of the stairs. He was going to be late, Norrington realised, and he detested rushing. It had been a deplorably-organised day, all in all.

"You got somewhere to be?" Sparrow asked, no doubt noting the change in his expression.

"Yes, as a matter of fact." After the first, barely awkward time calling on Mrs Turner, he had been resolved that however much he continued to enjoy her company (and he did), the irritation of the gossip was not worth two cups of Oolong and a soothing atmosphere for half an hour.

It had surprised him when Will Turner had stopped by the garrison to drop off a bill, and rather than avoiding his office and leaving it with a lieutenant, had stepped, almost shyly, in. "My wife —" and Norrington saw no flicker of triumph in his eyes, "would be very pleased if you would call when she is at home Friday."

"I should dislike putting you out, Master Turner," Norrington managed to say, wondering why such an invitation was being issued; if it was at Turner's behest, trying to retain his business; if Elizabeth was regretting marrying beneath her (he rather thought not, she had looked gilded with happiness); and which of them thought that a jilted lover made an appropriate tête-à-tête.

"Marriage should not be an occasion to forget friendship," Turner said. "I would be as pleased as my wife, Commodore." He had grinned, and Norrington would have been hard-pressed to say if he had resembled the subdued boy to whom he had taught the use of a blade anymore, or if that Will Turner had been swept away in the tide, to be replaced by the cocksure man he had somehow become (with Jack Sparrow's help). But it did not matter, because Norrington found himself already smiling back, and the invitation had been accepted without a word's being spoken.

Within three weeks, it had been a habit. Already it was unremarkable: Weatherby Swann kissed only Jane Anderson's hand in church every Sunday, Mrs Jackson wore half-mourning all year, James Norrington took tea at the Turners' on Fridays. It was Friday once more, and he was expected, he knew.

Sparrow raised a brow, and drawled, "I'll go make meself useful in the galley, then, while you fais ta toilette." He grinned, flashing teeth, and laid a hand on the knob of the door to the study.

"Sparrow?" He was surprised to hear his voice so ordinary — as if having the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean make insinuations about his habits was a, well, habit. The muscles in his neck tightened — the man's very presence was destructive of everything civilized, including proper syntax and vocabulary. "Get out of my house and be damned to you."

"I might," Sparrow said, as he opened the door, which did not creak as it ordinarily did, "almost begin to think you don't wish my charmin' company, Commodore. I'd be devastated, truly, I would. Sir." He waggled his fingers in a coy goodbye, and clomped down the stairs.

Norrington closed his eyes, and leaned heavily on his hands. "Damn it," he murmured. "Of all the damnable...."

He shook his head — Andrew would have been no less dead if Sparrow had not delivered the news, and he did not like to think about who else might have come to Port Royal as Pluto's messenger, and in what fashion they might have spoken.

Might was a word for scholars (might angels dance on pin-heads?), and scholarship was one of the many things he had left behind him in England.

Along with decent soap, he thought grimly as he scrubbed at his face; the scent of lye scorched the inside of his throat as he inhaled, and he thought longingly of the soft water in Bath, and the way the soapsuds had spilled over his hands when he had been taken to accompany his mother, the year she had that terrible cough. The momentary respite from his irritation had sufficed to cool his temper, and he drew a breath in as he wiped his hands on a towel.

The air was scented with the flowers on the trellis outside his window, and his mouth curved involuntarily as he crossed the room to fling back one of the blooms. There were many compensations for this command and its burdens; the flowers were one of the simplest and most profound.

They were never a part of life at sea, and while James Norrington was not sorry that he had been the younger son sent off to the Navy — Thomas had undoubtedly been far more suited to the law than he — he would admit to missing the garden he had tended in his youth. While the blossoms in the Caribbean seemed almost obscene in their luxurious tint, tending them was much the same task, if a trifle less onerous in the sun of the tropics.

That was one of the few things that was easier here, he murmured internally, as he turned his thoughts back to the troublesome news the day had laid at his doorstep, and began to shake sense out of nonsense, like dust from a carpet.

He dressed hurriedly and was half-way down the back stairs when he realised he still had Jack Sparrow and a French islander street-child in his kitchen. Clearly they could not be left there, but it would take an age to drag them both down to the jail — Sparrow would resist, no doubt, and it went against Norrington's judgement to lock up a frightened boy — which was in the other direction to the Turners's house, at any rate, and he could not help wondering if today would ever cease being a trial.

He was running through various possibilities, each more distasteful than the last, when he stumbled over Jack Sparrow himself, perched on the dim final step in the stairwell.

"The little one's making eyes at your cook," Sparrow said, "an' I'd rather not watch."

Surprised, Norrington chuckled, and said, "Mary will be able to handle him, I think." His cook was a native woman, who had never married, with hands that could wrap around a suckling pig. She had fended off the advances of the butcher, the baker, and once, according to local legend, thrown candle-wax on an overly-persistent swain. He had no worries on her account.

Sparrow nodded, and stood up, stretching so that his back creaked like the timbers on a ship and his hair swung around his face like ropes left loose. "You're not goin' to leave me here?" he asked, tilting a brow.

"No," Norrington said, and grasped Sparrrow's elbow. "I shan't need to put irons on you, shall I?" he asked, his tone a warning.

Sparrow flashed his teeth in the gloom of the hallway. It was not a smile, but it was not a bad facsimile. "Can't imagine why you'd feel the need," he said, and snugged his arm through Norrington's. "Shall we, then?"

He stepped back, and glanced out the door to the garden. Well, he would not quickly forget the day's events, that was certain.

"Come," he said, opening the garden door. "And I give you fair warning, Sparrow, play the fool with me and I'll shoot you in the knee."

Sparrow did not seem frightened, not that Norrington had expected him to be, but those dark eyes studying him seemed a trifle...thoughtful, which was not a word he had ever expected to apply to Jack Sparrow. He waved impatiently, and Sparrow turned to wander down the garden path.

"The shore road will have the least traffic, I think," Norrrington said, and hurried Sparrow out the gate at the back.

"Where're we headed?" the man asked, as if he did not know.

"I am to call on Mrs Turner," Norrington said, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw that the road was utterly deserted. He did not fancy explaining Jack Sparrow's presence in his house, much less in his intimate company, and to eliminate entirely the need for explanation would be marvellous.

But Sparrow had stopped dead in his tracks and was staring at him. "Commodore, you can't mean —" he blurted.

"Yes, Captain Sparrow," he said. "I do. We have matters to discuss." He strode out, trusting that Sparrow would follow him, and, to his relief, he did, catching up within a few breaths, and for a few moments, neither spoke.

"Any ideas?" Sparrow said at last, sounding subdued. He nodded sharply, and was pleased to see that Sparrow's interest sharpened. "Do tell."


End file.
